The main problem that we are trying to solve is secondary environmental damage caused by the current oil spill cleaning methods. For example, when using chemical dispersants, although they do help the oil naturally biodegrade, they can introduce toxic and harmful chemicals into the ocean. The reason that people are willing to do these trade-offs is because oil spills have caused significant damage to marine life; they are known to poison wildlife, and even destroy natural ecosystems and habitats. Finding an eco-friendly device to clean up oil would highly decrease the amount of damage that chemical dispersants have on the planet and marine life.

We will be comparing our device Sea Sweep with Sorbent pads and Sponges and testing weather they work best in salt or fresh water. We tested 15 minutes, 1 hour, and 1 week and conducted the experiment twice. We figured out how much oil was absorbed by each device by measuring the devices beforehand on a kitchen scale (we measured in oz) and we weighed them after and the difference in the two weights was how much oil had been absorbed.

These are all of the charts containing all of the data. We learned that in most cases all of the devices worked best in salt water, we think that is because the salt water caused the oil to stay on the surface, unlike the freshwater which in some cases caused the oil to sink into and/or mix with the water.

In conclusion we figured out that all of our devices worked best in saltwater compared to in freshwater, due to the salt causing the oil to stay on the surface making it easier to absorb; yet in freshwater the oil sunk and/or got mixed into the water. Out of all the devices we used, the sorbent pads worked the best, absorbing more oil than the rest and leaving the top of the water with only small droplets of oil. And the sponges worked the worst, absorbing only a bit of oil. In the end our device (Sea Sweep) ended up with results in the middle of the other two devices. If we could change things about the device it would probably be the glue/method of gluing, for some of the mycelium ended up falling off and turning the water yellow. After we tested the devices and the materials (seperatly) used in Sea Sweep in only canola oil (instead of with water) we found that (again) the sorbent pads worked the best, yet the mycelium was a very close contender. The mycelium absorbed alot of the oil and even started to grow over it and grow larger. In the future we would like to also learn more about how mycelium grows and how we can use that knowledge to make our device more affective. In conclusion the sorbent pad worked the best in the short periods of time, and all the devices absorbed more oil in salt water. And Sea Sweep ended up working the best in the long periods of time.

Make your own all natural glue - glass, paper, fabric, ceramic, wood - It sticks it all! (2026, February 6). Missus Who Does Stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj4y2BcCrtQ Stamets P. (2010) The petroleum problem https://fungi.com/blogs/articles/the-petroleum-problem?# What is Bioremediation? Microbiology Society https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAyVcR17COs Oyster Mushrooms - Mycoremediation Enchanted Nature Tours https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ6xK3Lya7Q Martin J. (2020) 100 Things About Saving The Planet Usborne Publishing Ltd O'Donnell S. (2022) Heartwood Mushrooms https://heartwoodmushrooms.ca/blogs/blog/breaking-down-hydraulic-oil-with-oyster-mushrooms-part-1? srsltid=AfmBOopLU4nUBGuttUy5iz_TQ9Diiw3X3a5Wwgm_hKfRV83OJAjOCAcc

We would like to acknowledge Kathleen Dogantzis from the University of Calgary for helping us all along the way with all of our questions. We would also like to thank our teacher, Sra. Vianny Fenske for setting up meetings with the students from the University of Calgary and for giving us all the help we could possibly need. We would like to thank our parents Erin and Craig Marshall and Jilly Scott, for supplying us with all the materials needed and we would like to thank Erin and Craig for allowing us to conduct the experiment in there home. We would also like to ackowledge Heartwoodmushrooms.ca because they conducted an experiment similar to ours (With motor oil) and we would like to say that their project had some very important knowledge and it helped us learn more about the topic of mycoremediation. And we would like to acknowledge the use of CoPilot (with our teachers supervision) to help us choose a name for our project, hence "Sea Sweep: Mycelium and Milkweed Oil Cleanup."